A new UN climate report published Feb. 28 finds, among many other things, that the incidence of vector-borne diseases has increased from range expansion and/or increased reproduction of disease vectors.
Biologist Kim Medley, director of Tyson Research Center, the environmental field station of Washington University in St. Louis, is available to speak about the ecology and evolution of vectors of human and wildlife disease.
"Mosquitoes have been pervasive elements of our landscape and have influenced human societies for millennia, causing severe disease outbreaks and influencing the outcomes of major conflicts," Medley said. "To understand how mosquitoes transmit disease, it is critical to understand their ecology and evolution — why mosquitoes and their pathogens are where they are."
Medley was the first author of a recent paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology about how invasive mosquitoes are using new strategies to expand into larger geographic areas.
The mosquitoes she studies are “competent vectors” of numerous pathogens that are relevant to humans, including Zika, chikungunya and dengue viruses. Medley can also comment on certain aspects of tick-borne disease risk, especially in the American midwest.
Read the full news release here: https://source.wustl.edu/2019/08/mosquitoes-push-northern-limits-with-time-capsule-eggs-to-survive-winters/
Paper reference: Medley, K.A., K.M. Westby, and D.G. Jenkins. 2019. Rapid local adaptation to northern winters in the invasive Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus: a moving target. Journal of Applied Ecology 56:2518-2527.
RSS